Almost 30 Years of Bill Nelson
Yup, Practically Wired in '95 was the first time....the first time KNOWING that I was hearing Bill.
Blah blah blah, repetitive hyperbole; several paragraphs unwritten. This happens to me a lot with music that I've listened to for years or decades. Sometimes I hear it in new ways; I hear new things, and it's always a magical experience, like another expansion of awareness.
There was one time a couple years ago with a guitar part from a PW tune, maybe a bit of sweep picking. It blew my mind. Bill chimed in about how yeah "that's why to have to listen ..." (hard ?, carefully?). A few weeks ago it was 2 songs: Friends From Heaven, and Big Yellow Moon. On separate days I played each one over and over, soaking in the complexities and nuances, pretty much jaw agape at the level of...everything. I swear, BYM is an incredibly elegant piece of music, just intensely perfect in every way.
That's all ๐
A more direct answer is " PW and The Summer of God's Piano' were the two BN cds at the store when I first read about him there". Immediately, I knew that this was music strange and wonderful to my ears; an instant connection to new areas of sound. What a difference between these two albums, too, I wondered "who IS this guy?". Then I think it was 'Chance Encounters ' as a used cassette. This was when it wasn't easy to find everything at our fingertips. the next ones were Blue Moons etc., Atom Shop, After the Satellite etc. Those did until Noise Candy came out and I started getting everything new. BBD never grabbed me the way his later work did, except for a few tunes.